#musicbrainz

for this sort of thing, the music is part of a game release, and the game *itself* is an official release

i think of it more like adding a game to musicbrainz as an official release which includes some music, rather than extracting music from the game and then treating it as separate bootleg soundtrack trelease

tbh I agree that this makes more sense

I think of it this way: the only way you can get the music is by buying the game. A bootleg would imply that someone pirated it and can give it to you separately

the mix for music in the game is often wildly different from soundtrack releases so I dont agree with this at all

well, I mean you can also get a bootleg, but like

I'm describing what's in the game

there is a very clear distinction in intent from the artist/studio to release a game and the music just being part of the game, and the studio or artist also releasing a soundtrack

if you can't get the soundtrack separately in any meaningful way, it's not a release

riedler[m]: thats not at all what bootleg implies

bootleg just means its unofficial which I would argue it is when it's part of the game files and not an actual release

if that's the argument for it being a release then someone needs to go ahead and add a couple hundred thousand games to the databse

s/databse/database/

personally I'd be in favour of that since a lot of my music is from games

most games just also have official soundtrack releases

I mean you still can, noone's saying you couldn't. My argument is that it is not official. It's gamefiles in a random order copied from the game, not a release

as in on spotify or amazon and such

thats different

because those are releases

(because duh)

I mean obv

I mean I cited a precedent above already so 🤷

feel free to scour the edit history of that deus ex release and maybe you can find when it was set as bootleg and why

and it also showcases the distinction that I'm making:

The gamerip "release" is a collection of 223 tracks/files is in status `Bootleg`

The actually real commercially sold soundtrack is `Official + Soundtrack`

* 223 tracks/files and is in

well, I published the edit: https://musicbrainz.org/release/9fabdff7-9549-4...

please tell if anything else seems wrong

fwiw, there already _are_ a number of games in musicbrainz as releases, in part because there were quite a few games in the 90s which had discs with mixed data and audio tracks, such that you can play the game disc in a cd player, or rip them.

it doesn't make sense to call those bootlegs; it's just the game release. which has some music that can be played without the game itself running.

that said, i'm not sure the release type on e.g. https://musicbrainz.org/release/75a6e83c-25fe-4... for example - "Album+Soundtrack" really makes sense. it's not the soundtrack for a game, it is itself the game :/

for some reason that's been lumped in the same release group as the separate soundtrack releases.

what do you suggest? other with no secondary type?

<kepstin> "fwiw, there already _are_ a..." <- That is also a different situation because at that point the artist intent is clearly for it to be a distinct release you can listen to

kepstin: that's kind of been my point the entire time that you've been arguing against -_-

hmm? no, not really; the choice of using a cd was just a technical means of getting playable high quality audio before e.g. mp3 files (or computers fast enough to decode mp3 files) were available

wat

and in many cases these were difficult or dangerous to play in cd players at the time, since the first track was a data track containing game files

so what are CDs today then lol

I mean some would say a fossil I guess

but still

the releases i'm talking about, included the one i linked, are games which included background music that played while the game was running; it just happened that the background music was implemented in the game by having the computer play audio tracks selected by the game engine on the computer's cdrom drive.

on modern releases, the same thing is done, except that the game engine plays mp3 or whatever audio files which are included in the game directory

it's the _same thing_

except its not the same thing

you could play the game disc of older games in a cd player, you can play the music files out of the game directory in an mp3 player

how is "these music tracks included on the media that the game shipped on can be played outside the game" not the same thing?

oh boy

ping me when there's a consensus :neofox_laugh_sweat:

in the case of the AIR game that i linked, they also _separately_ released a soundtrack for the game which was intended to be listened to on cd players

(the game disc was not)

when you put a game disc (good luck finding one) into a CD drive you will hear nothing because it's all packed data and *not* an Audio CD.

What you're talking about is a CD that was specifically made to be Audio CD *and* Data CD. That the data CD also accesses the music part is clever engineering.

The point though is that there is a clear intent for you to be able to put it in an Audio CD player and listen to it.

except... you're not. that's just a coincidence based on the particular way that it made sense technologically at the time to ship music

the cds didn't play as music in all players, and could result in nasty (even speaker breaking...) sounds playing if you had a player that tried to play the data track as sound.

kepstin: I dont believe that to be true TBH. If they didn't want you to be able to put it in an audio CD player then they could have just packed WAV (or probably MIDI for this) files instead of partitioning the CD in such a way that it is possible

computers at the time _were not able to play music in realtime in software while the game was running_

That makes 0 sense. Because clearly they did, from the CD.

the cdrom drive was essentially hardware accellerated music playback, since it had a built-in dac. the music never actually went through the computer at all

the cdrom drive decoded/played the audio, it ran with an analog cable into the sound card, which mixed it into the output sound along with sound effects from the game

all the game did was tell the drive to play a specific track on the cd, possibly with looping options.

You're meaning to tell me that in 2000 we didn't have computers capable of playing music in real time? That is your argument? Because that is just not true, it was in the dark ages but I was there lol

2000s was borderline, but certainly older games it made more sense

and thats even ignoring that MP3 was released in 1991

* in 1991 and was playable

* in 1991 and was playable (by 2000 anyway)

>not able to play music in realtime in software *while* the game was running

anyways, i'm giving you some historical info on why some games happen to have their music formatted as audio tracks on a disc rather than files on a disc. and why i don't think that really makes any meaningful difference between audio tracks on a game disc as cd audio vs. audio tracks in a game download as mp3 files

if the game dev didn't want you to be able to play the music files in the downloaded game separately, they could have packed them into an encrypted archive or something - and a lot of games do.

I'm aware, but that still doesn't make it a soundtrack release

but sometimes there's just loose files that you can play separately if you want. and imo, it makes sense to track the game in musicbrainz as a release if that's the case

as you yourself said

it's not a soundtrack release

and that was all that I was arguing

the release is _the game itself_

OK? So? I'm talking about the release status on Musicbrainz WTF

You yourself said Album+Soundtrack doesn't make sense, so what does?

I never argued against adding it entirely

the only primary release group type in musicbrainz that makes sense right now is 'other'

and none of the secondary types seem to be applicable

(for the cases where both the game with separately playable music and a soundtrack album exist, a release-group–release-group "soundtrack of" relation might make sense, hmm.)

well if you go back you'll notice I was never talking about the type? I said the status should be bootleg because it's not an official soundtrack release

if the release is the game itself, then it is official

🤦OK whatever

hello wall

sure if someone extracted the files from the game and then made them available as a download separate from the game, i'd call that a "bootleg soundtrack"

but if you buy the game from the game's legitimate sales channels and it includes some audio files in the game dir that you can play in itunes or whatever, then the release is the game itself.

and it's official in that case.

also, i was talking about type i was answering a question you explicitly asked: "You yourself said Album+Soundtrack doesn't make sense, so what does?"

The Bootleg status lists this exact situation with the SH2 Complete "release". Music ripped from the game. It *does not imply* that it is illegal and it also doesn't imply how "hard" a rip is. If it's just a copy-paste, that is still a rip.

sure, but if you just play the files that are in the game directory, you're not ripping anything. we also have style guidelines discouraging adding bootlegs for digital releases which simply losslessly copy data from some different media format.

(although some specific bootlegs which fit that are in the db anyways because they're notable for some reason or another)

the guideline does say "physical" release, but honestly given modern distribution practices it might be better to remove that qualifier.

another interesting, overlapping topic is how to deal with games that include the ability to select and play specific music tracks in game, often using a music player specific ui. for some games, this might be the only way to get titles for the music tracks :)

this is overlapping, since you may or may not be able to play the tracks from the game data while the game isn't running.

the AIR game I linked earlier has a bonus features menu that lets you play tracks, but you could also use a cd player outside the game.

honkai star rail has packed data files, but has an interactive "record player" in the game world that lets you see a list of the tracks and pick one to play. (also, it's a live service game so it's constantly updating...)

(an interesting fun quirk about older games that used cd audio tracks for background music is that in some of them you can swap out the game disk while the game is running and put in your own music cd to play instead)

but yeah, it seems pretty simple for me? if someone has extracted music from a game and provided the music to other people, that's a bootleg soundtrack. if someone purchases a game which includes music and then they play the included music directly from the game media, then that is an official release of a game (which, since musicbrainz doesn't have "game" as a release type, would be "other").

If there’s a bunch of accessible music in a folder in the download, called “music” or whatever, then I have never added the release as a “rip”. Just my two cents

FWIW this was my definition of “rip” in the vgm guidelines I was peddling on MB-street for a while (maybe time for a revisit, now that podcasts kinda make sense?):

“’Gamerip’ releases of game audio extracted from game files, or recorded from gameplay. Usually requiring third-party tools, and editorial decisions by a ‘ripper’. These are bootleg releases.”

It’s all just semantics though